The Disappearance

by J. F. Freedman

  She nods. “I’m a night owl. I don’t need much sleep, I like to sit out on my deck here and watch the waves in the dark. It’s wonderful.” She smiles. “It’s especially wonderful with a glass of Dom Pérignon nearby.”

  “I’m sure it is.” He gets back on track. “What did you and Doug Lancaster talk about?”

  “He wanted to talk to Ted.”

  “Your husband.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you tell Mr. Lancaster?”

  “That Ted wasn’t here.”

  “And that was it?”

  “Pretty much.” A swallow from the can, another crossing of the legs.

  Is she waiting for me to make a move? “Did you and he talk at all?”

  She smiles. “Oh, sure. We gossiped for a few minutes. He was upset that he’d forgotten Ted was leaving town—they had some unfinished business. I told him he’d have to wait until Ted returned.”

  “And that was it?” he asks.

  She stares at him. “That was it,” she says, as if challenging him to say otherwise.

  “So to make sure I have this straight,” he says. “Neither you nor your husband saw Doug Lancaster on the night his daughter was kidnapped. He made a short phone call to your house, you spoke to him briefly, and that was it.”

  She nods. “You’ve got that right.”

  “You didn’t invite him to stop by for a nightcap on his way up the coast. Since you’re a night owl and would be up.” He smiles at her, his look drifting down to her legs now, deliberately, obviously.

  Just as obviously, she yet again recrosses them, rubbing one against the other. “No,” she says softly, “I didn’t do that.” She smiles back at him. “My husband wouldn’t go for that, even with an old friend like Doug.”

  He feels reckless—he’s been shot at, wounded. Right now, he’s on a pass. “What if your husband didn’t know?” he asks boldly. “Just a drink between friends, a glass of Dom Pérignon at two in the morning.”

  She shakes her head, a slow rotation, the smile still fixed, still languid. “Doug Lancaster wasn’t here that night,” she says smoothly. “Why?” she asks. “Did someone say he was? Did he?”

  He closes his notebook. “No. I was just making sure.” He gets up, trying not to show his stiffness. “Thanks for your time.”

  She walks him to the front door. As he’s about to go, she puts a hand on his arm. “I saw you on television the other night,” she says. “You’re better looking in person. But of course, no one’s going to look their best an hour after being shot and almost killed.”

  He almost laughs out loud—she’s known all along. “Well, thanks for talking to me anyway,” he says. Hell of a woman; he hopes Doug appreciates her. He doubts that he does.

  “I have nothing to hide. Doug Lancaster wasn’t here … that night. And that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” Her hand is still on his arm.

  “Yes,” he agrees. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters.”

  Driving back up the coast again, Luke has one eye on the rearview mirror. His cell phone sits on the seat beside him, ready for a 911 call at the slightest provocation. He’s jumpy, he admits it—he doesn’t know if he’s being followed, or what the deal is. If Doug Lancaster really is behind all this, which increasingly he thinks is the case, someone could be bird-dogging him right now, waiting for an empty stretch of road to try something.

  It would be a risky business, a broad-daylight attack. Logan and Williams are on full alert now; if anything else happens to him their asses are in a sling. Hopefully they’ve spoken to Doug by now, told him to cool it, whether he was the assailant on the bluffs or not.

  Going to see Helena Buchinsky was a calculated risk. She’ll call Doug, he’ll freak. But that’s part of the plan, to ratchet the pressure up on him, see if he can be flushed out.

  If he’s the killer.

  The situation is getting gnarly. Initially, Luke’s looking into Doug Lancaster’s whereabouts on the night of his daughter’s kidnapping was a wild grasping at any straw blown up by the wind. Now, with Helena Buchinsky’s flat denial of his being with her that night, the matter of where Doug was becomes a major issue, a powerful weapon for their defense.

  She could be lying about Doug’s not being with her, to protect herself and her marriage. If Doug does come under suspicion, and they were together, would she maintain her denial?

  The converse, if there is one, is much more dire. What if Doug truly wasn’t with her that night? Where the hell was he, then?

  Doug Lancaster lives in Hope Ranch now, another of Santa Barbara’s exclusive enclaves. It’s closer to the station; on nice days, when he’s feeling vigorous, he rides his mountain bike to work. Ever since his divorce from Glenna he’s buried himself in his work, often going in before seven in the morning and staying until the eleven o’clock news wrapup. Right now, however, he’s at home, awaiting his appointment.

  Ray Logan drives his county-issue Buick Park Avenue through the tree-lined streets towards Doug’s house. Seated next to him is his senior investigator, Arthur Lovett. Lovett’s been the lead investigator in a good dozen murder cases. He was Luke Garrison’s number-one man when Luke was the chief. He still likes and respects Luke, and knows that the feeling is mutual. The two men had a drink together when Luke first came back to town, a nice couple of hours spinning old war stories. Lovett was upset that Luke was doing this, but it wasn’t his place to say that.

  They’re adversaries now, of course. But there won’t be the kind of personal animosity between them that Luke and Ray Logan feel towards each other—the old king (even though he’s still a young man), now deposed, versus the successor who is trying to fill those big shoes, carve out his own space, and fight the old image, all at the same time.

  “What do you think?” Lovett asks now. His boss is tense, he can read the body language. Logan’s gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles are actually white.

  “I don’t know” is Logan’s honest reply. “You know me—I don’t like surprises, and I’m starting to feel edgy, like one’s coming. I don’t want to find out that Doug Lancaster hasn’t been a hundred percent straight with us.” He navigates a turn up a narrow road that leads to the gated driveway.

  “Have you talked to the woman?” Lovett asks. “Since she talked to Luke?”

  “Ronnie talked to her.” Ronnie White is a deputy D.A. who does much of Logan’s personal assisting. “Her story is consistent from when we interviewed her a year ago. She and Doug weren’t together that night.”

  Lovett thinks about that. “Then Doug is going to be on the hot seat. Luke Garrison’s going to put him on it, and keep him there. This could turn out to be the Doug Lancaster trial instead of the Joe Allison trial.” He runs a hand over his bald, sun-blotched pate. “I know how Luke thinks.”

  “Doug Lancaster doesn’t have to prove where he was that night,” Logan says pessimistically.

  Lovett gives his boss a withering look. “Ray. Listen to yourself. Maybe by the book he doesn’t have to have a good alibi, but you don’t want to have to face a jury during summation and not have that question answered. Do you?” he asks pointedly.

  Logan shakes his head. “No.” His grip tightens on the wheel again.

  They announce themselves through the guard box. The gate swings open and they drive through, winding up a long eucalyptus-lined lane to Doug’s house. Like his old house, this one has views that go on and on. “It used to be everything Doug Lancaster touched turned to gold,” Logan comments as he parks in the circular driveway in front of Doug’s opulent house.

  “Not anymore, poor bastard,” Lovett replies as he gets out. He looks out over the manicured yard to the ocean, a hundred yards below where they’re standing. “He’d give all this up in a heartbeat to have his daughter back.”

  Logan turns to him. “I hope so,” he says, almost in a whisper, as if he’s afraid Doug might be listening in from some hidden outpost.

  “You’re
really worried about this.”

  Logan nods gravely. “What’s a prosecutor’s worst nightmare?” he asks. He answers his own question: “To be trying the wrong man.”

  Lovett grimaces. “That’s the second worst nightmare,” he corrects his boss.

  “What’s worse?” Logan asks, his voice betraying his nervousness.

  “To be trying the wrong man and have it blow up in your face.”

  Lancaster’s new study is different from his old one. It’s light and airy, devoid of ghosts. “How are you doing?” Doug asks. “We’re going to trial in a few weeks,” he says, immediately taking control of the meeting they called. “Are we ready?”

  “We’re doing fine, Mr. Lancaster,” Logan says staunchly. “We’re as ready to go as we can be. At this point in time.”

  “Good.” Doug glances at his watch, as if he’s running late for an important meeting, more important than this one. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Your whereabouts on the night your daughter was taken from her room,” Lovett says, deliberately blunt. “For openers,” he adds provocatively.

  Doug stares at Lovett as if the man’s slow on the uptake—a year slow. “In my hotel, in L.A.,” he says, answering the question. “You know that,” he continues, almost dismissively. He looks from one public servant to the other. Then the last part of Lovett’s comment sinks in. “For openers what?”

  Logan steels himself. This is going to be a bitch. “You weren’t in your hotel that night, Mr. Lancaster.” He isn’t comfortable calling him Doug, not under these circumstances. “Not between one and nine in the morning.” He recedes into his chair, as if trying to put as much distance between him and Doug Lancaster as possible.

  Doug stares at him. “What are you talking about, Ray? Of course I was.”

  Another head shake, this one more emphatic. “No. You weren’t. We have witnesses who saw you leave, and saw you return.” He pauses. “Luke Garrison has already talked to them. He’s ahead of us on some of this, which is outrageous, considering we’re on the same side and he isn’t.”

  Doug starts to flash an answer, catches himself, hesitates in mid-move out of his chair, settles back in. He looks from Logan to Lovett. They’re staring at him with intensity. “I … I … that’s not true.”

  Logan gets up and approaches Doug. This is going badly. He doesn’t care who Doug Lancaster is or how powerful he is, he can’t abide one of his key players lying to him. The whole case could unravel. “We know you weren’t at the hotel, like you told the sheriff a year ago,” he says, working to control his anger. “So let’s have it—where were you? You have to give us something credible, or we are going to be in trouble. All of us.”

  Lancaster looks lost, shaking his head back and forth, like someone trying to will a bad dream away.

  “You made a phone call to Ted and Helena Buchinsky right before one in the morning,” Lovett says, boring in behind Logan. “You spoke to Helena Buchinsky.”

  Doug starts to protest. “No, I—”

  “She spoke to you,” Lovett says, cutting Doug off. “She’s already told us she spoke to you, that she told you her husband was out of the country, which you had known but apparently forgotten.” He looks over at his boss—they’re on the same wavelength, so he goes for it. “What we’d like to know is, was the call intended for her, Mr. Lancaster, rather than her husband? Double-checking to make sure her husband was out of the country, so you could come on over and see her?”

  Lancaster is startled by this aggressive and confrontational questioning. “No. I was trying to get him. I really did forget.”

  “So you weren’t with her that night,” Lovett continues. “Which she swears is the case. She says you weren’t there.”

  “Well, then …”

  Ray Logan’s seething inside. They’ve been lied to, and they’ve been building a case based, in significant measure, on what’s now proving to be false information. “Is Helena Buchinsky your mistress?” he asks bluntly.

  Lancaster flies out of his chair. “What the hell!?”

  Logan puts up a restraining hand. “You’ve had various affairs over the years, Doug.” He uses the first name now, forget the deferential treatment. “So we have to assume—and so will Luke Garrison,” he emphasizes, “that you and this Buchinsky woman were—are—lovers, and that’s where you were intending to go when you called her late that night.”

  Doug looks away. “I can’t say she and I are … were … lovers.” His voice is starting to take on a tone of desperation “Her husband is a close friend and business colleague. An accusation like that would be ruinous, disastrous.”

  “If you say so,” Ray Logan responds. “But if you had been with her, you’d have an alibi. As things stand now, you don’t. So once again. Where were you?”

  Doug looks at them. “I … I can’t tell you.”

  Logan can’t believe what he just heard. “Mr. Lancaster.” He’s formal again. “This is serious. You have to tell us.”

  “I know it’s serious. But I can’t. I have a legitimate reason why.” He looks at them almost beseechingly. “I’m not the one on trial. I’m the one who lost his child.”

  Logan feels impotent, manipulated. “It’s your decision. But it’s going to seriously cripple us.”

  Lovett horns in. “What about Sunday night?” he asks.

  “Sunday night?” Doug asks, not connecting. Or, more likely, faking it, Logan thinks darkly. This man is digging his own grave with this unfathomable behavior. “The night Luke Garrison was shot.”

  Lancaster stares at him in angry disbelief. “You can’t think I had anything to do with that. How could you think that?”

  Ray Logan eases out of his chair to get closer to this man who could be jeopardizing the case of his, Logan’s, life. “We have to think of the possibility. Luke’s going to, he’s going to make a huge stink about it,” he says as calmly as possible, ticking the salient points off on his fingers. “You’re a property owner at the Hollister Ranch, so you have access, which is very important—the police have to assume that the shooter had easy access, in and out. Otherwise, it’s too risky. Two, you own rifles, don’t you?”

  Lancaster stares hard at him. “Yes,” he answers gruffly. “I own rifles, I own shotguns, I own pistols. So do millions of other people.”

  “Not many who have property at Hollister,” Logan counters. “That’s what’s so troubling, Mr. Lancaster. Three,” another finger raised, “and worst, you’ve been in contact with Luke, threatening him, God knows what.” He’s losing it, he can feel he’s losing it, and he doesn’t care, he can’t help himself. “Why in the world did you do that?” he says heatedly, unable to keep his temper in check any longer. “Didn’t I warn you not to have contact with him? Can’t you see how that compromises us, and everything we’re trying to do? For you!”

  Doug slumps back into his chair. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.”

  Logan’s got to get out of here, the tension’s overwhelming. “Okay,” he says. “Sunday night.” A longer pause than he would like—given Doug’s attitude, he’s fearful of asking this next question. “You can alibi yourself for then.”

  “I was here,” Doug says.

  “Not alone, I hope?”

  Calmly: “Most of the time.”

  Logan looks over at Lovett. His investigator is shaking his head in shattered incredulity. “Can you produce someone—anyone—who will vouch for where you were between about eight and ten that night?”

  “No, I can’t. I was here, by myself. I was working.”

  Logan’s starting to itch from anxiety. His shirt feels clammy on his back. “Where do you keep your rifles?”

  Doug hesitates. “At the ranch.”

  “I’m going to send someone out from the sheriff’s office to impound them temporarily. I hope you understand why.”

  “Do I have to go along with this? I’m not accused of anything … am I?”

  Logan shares a look with Lovett
. “No. But we can get authorization to search for them if you don’t cooperate. Look,” he says, “we’re going to do it. With or without your assistance.”

  Doug looks unhappy at the prospect. With a show of resignation: “All right. If that’s what you need. I’m beginning to feel like I’m on trial here.”

  “There are holes in your story, Mr. Lancaster,” Lovett explains, taking the heat for his boss. “We need to fill them in. Call our office when you’ve located them and we’ll pick them up. You’ll get them back as soon as we run tests on them.”

  There’s nothing more to be done here now. “We’re leaving,” Logan says. “Your mysterious whereabouts could come back to haunt us,” he warns Doug.

  Sitting in his chair, Doug looks like all the bones and organs have been sucked out of him, leaving a shell. “I didn’t kill Emma,” he says plaintively. “Never, never. And I didn’t try to kill Luke Garrison, either.” He looks up at them. “I admit I may have pushed too hard, regarding Luke. I felt it was something I had to do. But kill him? No.”

  Luke, sitting in his office as he reads over some transcripts for the umpteenth time, is frustrated. Doug Lancaster’s whereabouts on the night of the shooting are unaccountable—Sheriff Williams personally called Luke to relay the information as soon as Ray Logan had met with him to recount his frustrating interview with Lancaster. The anger, disgust, and fear in the sheriff’s voice came through loud and clear over the phone. Williams is still convinced Allison killed Emma, but he’s not proud about the way he’s handled the case, especially his kid-glove treatment of the Lancasters.

  Over and over, Luke finds himself drawn to two anomalies in the growing mountain of information.

  The first has to do with Emma Lancaster’s key ring, the most damning piece of evidence against Allison. If Emma was being abducted, who would want it? She wouldn’t be taking it, not if she was snatched against her will. The only reason she might have brought it with her would be if she was a willing participant, and needed to get back into the house later. Even then, that’s a dubious premise, because she could come back in the same way she left, through the outside door to her bedroom. The key wasn’t for that door, so it wouldn’t have mattered. It would make a lot more sense that the key ring was lost or misplaced somewhere else. Conceivably it could have been in Allison’s car, and when he found it he tossed it in his glove compartment and forgot about it. It’s questionable whether he would have known it was Emma’s, anyway.